• Times editor Harding apologises for email hacking• James Harding: 'I sorely regret the intrusion' on blogger• Harding: I was unaware Times had gone to High Court• Harding got email about hacking but was 'too busy to read it'• Paul Dacre, Mail chief, recalled to inquiry on Thursday• Watch the hearing

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The Editor of The Times, James Harding tells the Leveson Inquiry he "sorely regrets" the Nightjack incident, in which a journalist hacked into a blogger's email account.

Baroness Buscombe, the former head of PCC, tells the Leveson Inquiry she feels she was misled by the Murdoch-owned company when the regulator attempted to investigate claims of phone hacking at the News of the World.

Lord Prescott: Met phone hacking admission is justice at last

17.40Gordon Rayner has filed the following emails read to the Leveson Inquiry on The Times/Nightjack affair. Patrick Foster is the email who hacked the blogger's email account.

• May 19, 2009: Patrick Foster to Martin Barrow, then home news editor at The Times: “Martin, sorry to bother you. Do you have five minutes to have a quick chat about a story away from the desk, down here in the glass box perhaps?” [James Harding says email hacking happened shortly before this]

• May 20:Foster to Barrow: “Alastair (Brett) on side…am trying to talk it out of the paper this sat for three reasons…want little more space between the dirty deed and publishing.”

• May 30:Foster to Brett: “Alastair, I cracked it. I can do the whole lot from purely publicly accessible information.”

• May 30:Brett to Foster: “Brilliant – that may be the golden bullet. Can you set it out on paper?”

• June 4 [after High Court hearing before Mr Justice Eady at which Times fought injunction stopping it naming NightJack blogger]Memo from Brett to David Chappell, then managing editor of The Times, and to James Harding: “I first saw Patrick Foster on or about 19 May [about NightJack]… he then said he had gained access to the blogger's email account and got his name. This raised immediate alarm bells with me…I told Patrick ‘never ever think of doing what you have done again’. I said he might just have a public interest defence if anyone ever found out how stupid he'd been… I became aware of the possibility that Patrick's access to Horton's email account could constitute a breach of section 1 of the Computer Misuse Act [which has no public interest defence].”

• June 14 [on eve of Mr Justice Eady’s decision being made public]Chappell to deputy editor Keith Blackmore: “Are we now stuck in a position of having to run something because of the legal processes?...What do we do about Patrick?”

• June 14 [after Times had been given notification of Eady’s decision]Chappell to Brett: “If we publish a piece by Patrick saying how he pieced together the identity (for which Eady praises him!) what happens if subsequently it is shown that he had accessed the files? What are the ramifications for him, you and the editor – does our decision to publish knowing there had been a misdemeanour indicate complicity and therefore real embarrassment or does Eady’s judgement get us off the hook?”

17.29 Mohan says he was first aware of the Operation Elveden arrests of four Sun journalists on the Saturday morning that they took place. He had no forewarning of the arrests.

17.25 Mohan is asked about the revelation in 2006 that Gordon Brown's son had cystic fibrosis.

Brown suggests last year the article came from leaked medical records. The Sun insisted it came from a legitimate source.

Jay asks whether there was a public interest given the story ran without consent.

Mohan disputes this. He says it would not have been published without consent. Leveson questions whether the consent-gathering process was "robust", given the story was about a sick child.

Mohan notes there was a statement from the Treasury, which would not have been given without consent.

Mohan says: "I don't think this is our greatest moment. It's a valid feature but some of the language is not ideal."

He adds the story refered to a show called 'There's something about Miriam' in which men were conned into sleeping with transexuals in a Big Brother-style reality show.

Jay says the piece is "offensive." Mohan says coverage has improved in the past year and the paper has been praised by transgender charities.

The FT's media editor tweets:

&lt;noframe&gt;Twitter: Ben Fenton - [I suppose in their worst nightmare red-top editors get taken through headlines by a High Court judge.It's now happening to Mohan.] &lt;a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=leveson" target="_blank"&gt;#leveson&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/noframe&gt;

Mohan says the Sun has long referred to prostitutes as 'tarts'. But in this instance he adds: "It does grate with me. It is something I would think about before doing again".

17.01 Mohan is asked about an attack on Clare Short printed in The Sun, which showed the Labour politician's head on a Page 3 model and dubbed her "fat and jealous". She had criticised Page 3.

Mohan says he would not run such an article in that way now. Recent criticism of Harriet Harman over the issue of Page 3 had not resorted to such tactics, he adds.

Mr Jay reads a "rather stupid piece of popular science" which had suggested "Page 3 makes you brainy."

"That was a cheeky interpretation of a scientific survey. Tongue was firmly in cheek," Mohan says. He adds the paper hired Prof Brian Cox and has been praised for its science coverage.

Clare Short: dubbed 'fat and jealous' after criticising Page 3

16.54 Mr Jay asks Mohan about Page 3.

"It's meant to celebrate youth and freshness and natural beauty," he says, noting none of the women they feature have had breast enlargements. "It's legal - we're allowed to publish those images. It's an innucuous British institution."

"The ultimate sanction lies with the reader," he adds. "The images are not sexualised," he says, compared to music videos.

He asks the Inquiry look at Page 3 in context of the other women's issues work the Sun does against rape, domestic violence, cancer and PIP implants.

"Some of the allegations I've heard about the Sun being sexist and not tackling women's issues is a false one."

"The girls are very healthy. They are good role models. If you look at catwalk models they are stick thin and don't look very healthy."

16.48 Jay reads four more stories, all referring to lovers "bombarding with phone calls" or "making late night calls". One relates to Robbie Williams; another Mel C of the Spice Girls. Is he sure they didn't come from hacking into voicemails?

"I cannot recall the specifics of the story. That's all I can say," Mohan asks.

Jay asks again. Were they hacked from calls?

"Look I can't say one hundred per cent," says Mohan, adding many stories in newspapers involve phone calls and there is an investigation being conducted by News Corporation.

Jay reads two more celebrity stories - one involves Ryan Giggs - from 2001 involving a "bombardment" of phone calls.

Mohan doesn't recall who wrote the story.

Jay says the stories are based on a kernel of truth obtained by phone hacking, and then embellished with "confectionary" that Mohan had "made up".

Mr Jay suggests phone hacking was going on at The Sun when Mohan was there. "That's the truth, isn't it."

"No, that's not the truth," Mohan responds.

16.40 Dominic Mohan, editor of The Sun, is back up.

Mr Jay asks about a piece written by Mohan in the Bizarre showbiz column in 1998. It refers to Liam Gallagher and Patsy Kensit, and their phone rows. Who was the source?

Mohan says he had many off-the-record celebrity sources but the story was 14 years ago; he doesn't recall.

Is he sure it hadn't come from phone hacking, Jay asks.

"It doesn't mention any content of voicemail message," he responds. Agents and PRs often say couples have been talking on the telephone. He adds he doesn't know exactly. It's more likely that a pal told him or his reporting team.

Jay reads another story about Martine McCutcheon and her phone conversations with pals. Where did that come from?

Mohan says he doesn't recall some of the celebrities in the story. But, again, often agents or celebrities would give stories, attributed to 'pals'.

16.33 Morgan's firm paid "significant" damages to David Walliams and Lara Stone for harassment and invasion of privacy, the inquiry hears. Morgan does not recall whether there was already an injunction in place.

Morgan is asked about attempted "upskirt" photography of Charlotte Church. Morgan had previously claimed that such images are "justified" because celebrities co-operate. Is he serious, Ms Patry Hoskins asks.

"Yes. It happened in the US," he replies. Ms Patry-Hoskins asks how he knows whether they consent.

"Going commando" was a "well-known practice" by "lady celebrities," he says. "It was a prank almost," says Morgan.

Lord Justice Leveson asks if he can have a confidential copy of Splash's no-shoot list for the UK.

"Yes, m'lud," says Morgan.

16.25 On November 11, Tinglan Hong, the mother of Hugh Grant's baby, took an injunction out to prevent photographers shooting her. Hong was placed on Morgan's no-shoot list.

Hong alleged cars had waited outside her London house and one had driven at her mother. The DVLA identified that car as belonging to Colin MacFarlane.

MacFarlane is employed by Splash, Morgan confirms. He denies wrongdoing.

Morgan says he interviewed MacFarlane and asked to see on a Google Earth Map where he was and the woman was standing. "I believe his story that he didn't drive at her. There is no decision either way as to who was correct there... I would highly be suspicious of Colin doing that." If he had done it, he would be fired, Morgan adds.

16.11 We now have video link evidence from the US from Gary Morgan of Splash celebrity news and picture agency. It hires a large number of freelance photographers and a small number of staff photographers. They cover scheduled events and exclusive shots.

On privacy, "Sensitivity in the UK has a higher barometre than in the US," Morgan says. But his nine staff photographers in the UK are obliged by contract to uphold the PCC code. He adds the code is not very specific on photography or the digital age.

He has less control over freelancers. But they have to sign an agreement not to breach privacy or break the law. "Obviously we don't exert control over how they behave out in the street." He says they have not black-listed photographers who break the rules, but they would place them on a system that sees their photographs placed on the market more slowly.

He says there is a 'no-shoot' list of celebrities who should not be photographed - say, because they have taken out a court order.

Ms Patry Hoskins asks whether they add people to the list if their behaviour is clear that they don't want to be photographed - either by their reaction, or because they threaten legal action.

"I've never come across a situation like that," says Morgan.

16.02 This morning Baroness Buscombe claimed a number of newspapers threatened to leave the PCC after receiving adverse adjudications.

The PCC has since issued this statement:

Baroness Buscombe was giving a personal recollection of her conversations and experiences whilst at the PCC, during her evidence at the Leveson Inquiry this morning.

The PCC has not received any formal proposals from these publishers to withdraw from the system in recent years.

In a statement the Financial Times said:

The FT has never complained to the PCC about adverse adjudications nor has it ever threatened to leave the PCC because of rulings against the newspaper.

15.45 Mr Jay reads a piece from The Times written by the Media Editor from January this year. It says the role of hacking in Foster's story "remains unclear" and Foster used "public sources."

Harding says Mr Horton has contacted his lawyers about the affair.

He adds they gave Foster the "strongest possible sanction short of dismissal" - a formal warning for gross professional misconduct.

But Leveson says it was "abundantly clear" there was an offence under the Computer Misuse Act, if the dots were joined.

Harding says the sage is the story of "information that didn't get passed through."

They said if they print a piece praising Eady, and it later emerged there had been a misdemeanour, it could result in embarassment for the Editor.

Harding says he can't remember if he was told that the next day.

He says he would have blocked advancing the story, and taking it to the High Court, if he had known about the hacking.

Harding adds that having won the court case and taken up Mr Justice Eady's time, they had to "respect his judgement" and run the story.

15.32 Harding says he was "unaware of exactly what [Foster] had done" at the time of the story, and that remained the case until "the last couple of weeks".

Harding describes weighing up whether the story was in the public interest. He says he still believes the story "was firmly in the public interest".

15.29 Mr Harding says he was unaware of what advice Mr Brett was giving to the Times' barrister.

Mr Jay is puzzled that Harding did not know the legal basis of the High Court case.

Harding responds: "Much worse than that. I had no idea the case had been brought to court."

15.16 Harding told the inquiry he had been copied into an email on June 4, 2009 setting out the fact that Foster had hacked the blogger's email account but he was too busy to read it because there was an attempt to oust Gordon Brown that day.

The court hears Foster had been rusticated from Oxford for accessing email accounts, a breach of the Computer Misuse Act for which there is no public interest defence.

The managing editor, Mr Chappell, told Foster never to hack email accounts again, but he might have a public interest defence if ever found out. He was warned he could have been fired.

Harding says the next day he learnt of the case. "The biggest shock was the Times had taken the case to the High Court. I was not aware of this fact."

Harding says of his meeting with Mr Chappell. "I can't recall the exact contents with that conversation," Harding says.

Mr Jay says Harding was aware there was an issue with Foster's "behaviour", relating to the email account.

Mr Harding responds: "The issue here is I didn't know exactly what he had done... It just seemed to me to be a highly intrusive piece of reporting without prior approval."

"I can see now we paid insufficient attention to this matter at the time."

Ben Fenton of the Financial Times tweets:

Harding says Brett didnt tell him about the Eady hearing until it went to court. [that is quite extraordinary.Incredible.

15.14 Harding says Mr Horton's lawyers fears of hacking were raised with Alastair Brett, the Times lawyer. Brett "pushed them off" by saying it was a "baseless allegation", Harding says.

"I'm responsible for what happens in the newsroom of the Times, not the court room."

Nonetheless, he has written to Mr Justice Eady to apologise for the misleading evidence.

15.10 Mr Justice Eady says he was not convinced of the case for an injunction. But the injunction held until appeal. The claimant had no "reasonable expectation of privacy" because blogging is a public activity, he says.

Mr Jay suggests that if Eady had known the true story of Foster's methods he would have decided otherwise.

15.01 Patrick Foster said in a witness statement he would not reveal his "sources". There probably was no source, Mr Jay says. The statement describes how he had conducted a "forensic" examation of materials in the public domain. "It was entirely disingenuous, with respect."

Leveson says the hacking itself is not his main concern. "It's how it's dealt with across the system," says the judge.

Mr Jay quotes another statement put before the court, saying Foster's submission was based on "publically available material, patience and simple deduction". That is not correct, Mr Jay notes. The statement was signed by News International's barristers.

Mr Horton suspected his email had been hacked. But his lawyers accepted Foster's version of events was possible.

Mr Harding says he notes Mr Horton's lawyers suspected hacking and say so on six times in their witness evidence. "I'm coming to this nearly as fresh as you," says Harding. "I'm as shocked as you."

Ross Hawkins of the BBC tweets:

The facts of the Times hacking aren't disputed by the paper; this has become about who knew what when #leveson

14.52 Brett told a lawyer at Olswang they intend to publish. It triggers an application for an injunction. "The claimant has no idea how Mr Foster identified him as the author of the blog," the lawyers wrote in their application.

On May 20 Mr Justice Teare heard the case. The paper's barrister told the court Foster had deduced the identity of Horton, the policeman, by cross-referencing blog posts to stories in the public domain. It was a "largely deductive exercise," the lawyer says.

Mr Jay says the evidence is "entirely misleading."

Mr Harding says the lawyers were acting under Brett's instruction. Leveson says it is "inconceivable" that counsel would have intentionally misled a judge if he had known the truth about how Foster had obtained the story.

14.50 Harding says it was only after the hearing before Mr Justice Eady, which was to overturn the injunction Mr Horton took to protect his identity, that he as the editor, and the deputy editor and the managing editor of the Times actually learned about Foster's hacking. But they did learn of the hacking before Mr Justice Eady's judgement.

14.44 Harding says that if Foster had revealed to him he had hacked the email, he would have disciplined him and told him to drop the story. "I squarely do not approve of what happened."

Mr Harding adds he does not believe the intrusion was not warranted in the public interest - although the story itself was in the public interest.

On lunchtime of 30 May, Foster emailed Brett. "I've cracked it." I can do the whole lot from publically available information, Foster told the lawyer.

"Brilliant. That may be the golden bullet," Brett replied, asking Foster to lay it out on paper. Key to the exposure was Nightjack brother's email account.

14.38 The inquiry hears about emails relating to the incident in 2009. Mr Harding says he saw them in the last week.

They were sent by Patrick Foster to Martin Barrow, the news editor, and the legal manager, Alastair Brett, asking for brief meetings.

"Alastair on side," said a later email sent by Foster to Barrow. He says he wanted more time for the story to get "pix", to get "ducks in a row" and to put "space between the dirty deed and publishing".

Harding again says this information has only come about recently. Mr Harding says the email indicates Foster wanted to put some time between hacking the email and running the story. Foster wanted to piece together a version of events as to how he could claim to have exposed Nightjack from public sources, Mr Harding says. "Working from inside the maze out," as Mr Jay puts it.

Foster told Barrow he had spoken to Mr Horton - Nightjack. Horton would not confirm or deny to Foster, and said he "would lose his job".

Mr Brett, the lawyer, has claimed he "tore a strip" off Foster, and said if he wanted to run the story he had to do it by publicly available information, Mr Harding claims.

14.35 James Harding of The Times has just taken the witness box. He says he has learnt "a great deal more" about the Nightjack incident. It emerged Patrick Foster, a former Times journalist, hacked the police bloggers' email account.

"I sorely regret the intrusion into Mr Horton's email account by a journalist.

"People expect better of the Times, and so do I."

"On behalf of the paper, I apologise.

14.22 Turner says newspapers should have to undergo tests before printing photographers that show they were "sourced ethically". That would include checking the location and whether the person asked not to be photographed.

He asks that the law be clarified in a card form and bad photographers lose their press card.

14.15 Turner says amateur paparazzi - or "stalkerazzi" - are acting illegally and unethically and give professionals a bad name. They chase people down the road, driver dangerously and spit and provoke people into making facial expressions. They try to photograph "upskirts" by lying on the pavement. One photographer is said to have started a fight with a celebrity, so another could snap the scrap and share the money.

Russell Brand was arrested for scuffling with a photographer that tried to 'upskirt' Katy Perry in Los Angeles.

14.00 The inquiry is now hearing from Neil Turner of the British Press Photographers' Association. Counsel is Carine Patry Hoskins.

He estimates there are 1,800-2000 press photographers in Britain. He has 800 members.

Nick Tucker

He says his members are wrongly dubbed 'paparazzi'. They are professional photographers, he says. He also dislikes the term "pack".

In Britain there is less access to committee hearings, courts and parliament than abroad. He suggests a still photographer be allowed into the Leveson Inquiry.

He says no photographers want to chase cars down the road. The subjects of stories should have the "sense" to stop and allow their image to be taken. And what if someone does not want to be photographed, Lord Justice Leveson asks. They can issue a desist notice through the PCC, Mr Turner says.

Mr Turner notes JK Rowling chose not to come into the Leveson Inquiry passed the photographers' bank and instead used a rear door. The photographers had agreed with court to remain behind their barrier. Some chose to try to get pictures as she left the rear door on the request of their editors; others did not. Ms Patry Hoskins is concerned that photographers were under pressure to breach the agreement.

13.00 The inquiry breaks for lunch. Evidence continues at 14.00.

12.52 In 2008 Superbowl tweets peaked at 27 per second. This year the figure was 12,000 per second. "It was a very important game," Crowell says.

He says it would be up the British courts to decide who the authoritised entity to grey-box tweets in Britain would be.

Mr Barr asks about injunctions. Could a British court ask to unmask who is breaching an injunction?

Crowell says it would need a US court order. Twitter would, if compelled, turn over any information it held on a user.

Leveson asks how long tweets exist. They fall off a server eventually, due to capacity, but will remain if cached by another website, Crowell says.

Leveson says the testimony is "fascinating". "The numbers are quite frankly bewildering," he says.

12.45 Mr Crowell is describing how tweets in some jurisdictions are "grey-boxed" - the content is masked in accordance with local laws. But it is visible to other users in other areas.

Twitter does not want to put itself in the position of deciding what is or is not defamatory. That is the job of local legal authorities.

Everything Twitter can do on offending Tweets is "reactive." They can't block content ahead of time. "The tweets flow," he says. If content is retweeted and put outside a jurisdiction then that material is in the public doman, Crowell says.

The 'grey box' policy was introduced two weeks ago and has not yet been used. They have discussed its form with law enforcers. "For emergency purposes we also have a process for UK law enforcement." [It is not clear what he means by 'emergency' here.]

12.32 Colin Crowell,head of public policy at Twitter, is now giving evidence.

Twitter serves a billion tweets every four days - having taken over three years to get to the first billion. It has 100m active users, of which 70pc are outside the US. Their corporate goal is to "reach everybody on the planet." They have 700 staff.

David Barr asks about the ability to send "abusive" messages anonymously.

Crowell says anonymity and pseudonyms is important for freedom of speech in many repressive regimes. A Tweeter has a global audience, unless they opt out.

Posting other people's private information - such as an address, social security number or credit card number - is banned. Barr says that's quite a limited definition of privacy.

Crowell says the list is illustrative, but reflects a US legal definition of privacy.

The service also compels users to obey local laws. Crowell says if people are unhappy with tweets, a UK legal entity can approach the US office and ask for material to be deleted.

Crowell tells Leveson users can set up accounts with "unverified" indentities, and they cannot filter material. "We wouldn't have the ability to mediate or filter the content ahead of time." Leveson notes someone whose account is closed could open up a new account the next day and carry on spreading information. He says the only limit to what goes on Twitter is the 140 characters. Mr Crowell agrees.

Twitter was used to break the superinjunction barring detail of Ryan Giggs' affair with Imogen Thomas

12.24 Baroness Buscombe has been re-reading Scoop, the Evelyn Waugh novel. It "sums it all up," she says. The inbuilt culture of newsrooms has to be thought through. Whistleblowers have a role to play.

~ Evelyn Waugh

12.15 Buscombe says she brought Richard Desmond back into the PCC, but he left again in January 2011. She did not try to bring him back into the fold. His absence from the PCC compromised the credibility of the system as a whole, she says.

Lord Hunt's proposals for a reformed PCC are a "good start", but she says "with some sadness" there may have to be a statutory back-stop to the reformed PCC, compelling newspapers to join. But it is hard to know what to do with bloggers. She claims the "kite mark" idea for websites has proved popular. She feels happier going on a website if she knows it has "some oversight".

12.11 "You have to tread carefully to gain access," Buscombe says of newspaper groups. One publisher "never forgave" her after she slammed an editor for naming three victims of sexual assault - a breach of the law.

Mr Jay suggests she had no real influence over the "very powerful individuals".

She insists she told newspaper editors the system of self-regulation was in peril. But she could not put such a message in print.

12.08 Watchdog launches Motorman fast track for blag victims

A fast-track scheme for people to establish whether they were named in the so-called Motorman files linking journalists to the purchase of personal details has been set up by the information watchdog (PA reports).

Details relating to some 4,000 names were discovered in several files when the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) raided the Hampshire home of private detective Steve Whittamore in March 2003.

The watchdog launched a fast-track service today "to speed up the process for those wanting to find out whether anything is recorded about them".

Information Commissioner Christopher Graham said: "We have put in place a fast-track system for anyone who believes they may be in the files to email my office and we will then, as quickly as we can, give you a yes, no answer."

The ICO would then help anyone whose name may be in the files to make a subject access request to see the information which was held, he told the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee.

A spokesman for the ICO added: "Many people have already made a subject access request to the ICO for their personal information contained in the notebooks."

Altogether, 305 reporters, working for 20 newspapers and 11 magazines, commissioned more than 3,000 lines of inquiry and received a wide range of information.

The personal information they were seeking included home addresses, details of car ownership, ex-directory telephone numbers or records of calls made, bank account details and health records.

12.00 Buscombe says she was "terribly frustrated" by the PCC's inability to phone hacking following the Guardian's claims. They could ask newspaper executives to give evidence, but that might "raise hopes".

She says the public were "miscontruing" their role. Phone hacking was a criminal act and beyond the PCC's remit.

11.53 Leveson notes there is "no public trust" in the PCC. Buscombe responds rebuilding trust is a question for the judge.

11.46 Buscombe says negative adjudications "really hurt" editors. Editors would express "fury and anger" on the phone after being told off by the regulator.

But she notes the rest of the world would "kill" for a similar self-regulation regime. The FT, the Guardian and the Mirror threatened to leave the PCC after receiving adverse adjudications. Alan Rusbridger, the Guardian editor, tweets this is "not true".

She says she was perhaps being "too subtle". It was a message calling for reform of the PCC. But Mr Jay suggests she was just supporting the status quo.

She warns against fines. Not only would they harm co-operation between players in a system, but they have got to hurt the right person. "When the BBC is fined, it's you and me that pay, not Jonathan Ross," she says.

Jonathan Ross

11.34 Buscombe is asked about her handling of the phone hacking scandal.

She says she was "clearly misled" by News International. "I accepted what they told me but my hands were tied by limited powers," she says.

She accepted the PCC report of 2009, which found hacking was not widespread, but was "never comfortable with it." She says "We felt we had to do something," as a regulator. They would have been dubbed "useless" if they were seen to do nothing.

But in reality, the PCC could do "very little" over hacking because it had no investigative powers. In hindsight she regrets the report.

11.26 Back to Baroness Buscombe.

She says there is a "real problem" of trust when it comes to regulation. After the phone hacking scandal an editor asked her: "Peta, don't you trust us?" She didn't.

She says the PCC was used as a "scape goat" after the scandal, because many were too timid to take on the industry itself. She blames the Newspaper Publishers' Association for not reforming the PCC, particularly Tim Brooks, of the Guardian.

11.20 Away from Leveson: Europe's human rights court has issued a potentially ground-breaking ruling that upholds the media's right to report on celebrities and rejects an invasion-of-privacy complaint by Princess Caroline of Monaco.

The ruling by the court in the eastern French city of Strasbourg looks at the often-tricky balance between the media's right to expression and the individual's right to privacy.

Tuesday's ruling upheld media rights in two German cases that were rolled into one at the European Court of Human Rights. It sets a benchmark for all members of the 47-country Council of Europe.

One case involved news reports about a German TV star accused of using cocaine. The other had to do with the 2002 publication of a photo of Princess Caroline and her husband during a skiing holiday.

Princess Caroline of Hannover, the Princess of Monaco (left)

11.13 Paul Dacre is to be recalled to the Leveson Inquiry, Gordon Rayner reports.

Lord Justice Leveson, the Inquiry chairman, said he was “extremely unhappy” with the way Mr Dacre’s appearance yesterday had been used to pursue an “obvious conflict” between the two parties.

But he said Mr Dacre must return because he had been unable to answer certain questions about stories concerning Mr Grant as a result of both sides submitting fresh evidence at the eleventh hour.

When he returns Mr Dacre will be asked about a story that appeared in the Mail on Sunday referring to messages left on the actor’s mobile phone by a “plummy-voiced” English woman working for a film company in California.

Mr Grant claimed in his evidence to the inquiry that the only way the Mail on Sunday could have got the story was by hacking his phone, a claim that led the Mail’s publisher, Associated Newspapers, to accuse him of a “mendacious smear”.

11.06 After a short break, we are now hearing from Baroness Buscombe, the former chairman of the Press Complaints Commission. The Conservative Peer was formerly head of the Advertising Standards Agency. She says she would be "furious" if it was thought she was partisan in her role.

Baroness Peta Buscombe

10.45 Mr Zink says Bing would be willing to consider direction from a self-regulatory body in terms of pulling down links.

In the UK its practice for pulling down links in cases of invasions of privacy would be the same as for defamation. They'd treat it on a case by case basis.

He adds Microsoft has put "a lot of thought" into privacy-enhancing features.

Lord Justice Leveson asks Mr Zink to consider ways by which systems which can identify pornographic material can be adapted to filter material identified by a court as defamatory or an invasion of privacy.

10.21 We are now hearing from Ronald Zink, chief operating officer in Europe of Microsoft search engine Bing. He's come from Paris. David Barr is asking the questions.

Ronald Zink of Bing search engine

He says Bing, like Google, is not a publisher. It has no journalistic input or editorial function.

They discuss how to remove "problematic content". Mr Zinc says offending material can be removed by contacting the webmaster of the site or the internet service provider.

He says is it ultimately up to the user what they want to view online - ISPs simply connect the user to the web.

Bing will remove links to defamatory content when issued with a court order. But it also considers cases individually.

The FT's Ben Fenton tweets:

&lt;noframe&gt;Twitter: Ben Fenton - [So far, I think I was more on the edge of my seat with Jay/Dacre than I am with Barr/Zink. But worthy evidence. &lt;a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=leveson" target="_blank"&gt;#leveson&lt;/a&gt;]&lt;/noframe&gt;

10.07 Leveson is "extremely unhappy" about the damage to the "flow" of the inquiry done by the conflict between Hugh Grant and Associated Newspapers. Yesterday saw Mr Grant and the victims' QC David Sherborne attempt to question editor Paul Dacre about the way his client had been covered by the paper.

"I am not willing to allow what is an obvious conflict between one of the core participants and another to divert attention from my concern about the customs practices and ethics of the press. To some extent that conflict may evidence customs, practices and ethics, but there is a limit." The court was "bombarded" on Friday with statements dealing with "historical" issues. That would appear to refer to Grant's statements sent to the inquiry.

Associated's lawyer is now asking Lord Justice Leveson to not force Dacre to return to give further evidence and be cross examined by Mr Sherborne about the Hugh Grant stories - particularly one about a "plummy voiced woman", which Grant suggested was evidence of phone hacking.

But David Sherborne has persuaded Lord Justice Leveson otherwise - Mr Dacre will appear again before the inquiry on Thursday for around 30 minutes.

There is something in Mr Jay's manner that would start a fight in a pub. Not just the beard, or the passive combativeness. No, he insinuates mean motives into his questions, and sometimes when he finishes his question he leaves his mouth open.

It hangs there, disbelievingly. Try that in the Garrick Club and you'd leave without your teeth.

After 20 years in the chair Dacre must be one of the smartest – certainly the most successful – journalists to appear before Lord Justice Leveson: he is the Alex Ferguson of Fleet St. So for most of his three-hour grilling clumsy questions bounced off his granite certainties and sheer grip, the ultimate hands-on editor. Love him or hate him, Paul Dacre is formidable. ... Time and time again, Robert Jay QC sought to restrain the witness. "You can come up with just one quote," he conceded. Dacre obliged with a long chunk about family morality. Did you shoot from the hip? "No, it [Hugh Grant's attack] needed rebutting." Were you supportive of Stephen Lawrence's family because his father worked on your house? "I really do find that insulting."

It is not that the lawyers will not find wriggles and inconsistencies in the transcript, it was that he was too powerful for them, his words punctuated by silences, rarely by ums.

09.00 Yesterday Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre called for a regime of accreditation for journalists that could see rogue operators stripped of their press cards during three and a half hours of evidence. Gordon Rayner reports:

Paul Dacre proposed a system similar to the General Medical Council, which can stop doctors and nurses practising, rather than any form of state regulation. Reporters would carry a press card issued by the new regulator which would act as a “Kitemark” giving the public the reassurance that they were “ethical and proper” journalists, he said.

Lord Justice Leveson, the inquiry chairman, said he had thought about overhauling what Mr Dacre described as the “haphazard” system in which 17 bodies issue press cards. Mr Dacre said: “The key would be to make the cards available only to members of news-gathering organisations who have signed up to the new body and its code [of conduct].” He suggested that access to press conferences by government bodies, local authorities, royal events and material from scientific bodies would be restricted to accredited journalists, making it impossible for any publisher to survive without being signed up to the regulator.

Mr Harding will have to clarify how much and when he knew about the hacking of blogger Nightjack. The newspaper told Mr Justice Eady in the High Court that it had identified the blogger through legitimate public domain sources.